Here is our interview with David Deangelo, a programmer at Yacht Club Games, the creators of Shovel Knight. We tried to keep the text interview spoiler free, but for anyone looking to hear all of David's detailed thoughts we have the full 2 hour interview in audio format, as well.

“Schwing!” The sound of Hiryu's sword slash is one of the most iconic sound effects from the 16-bit era, and with the recent release of Strider it seemed like a good time to look back at the classic Capcom action title. Strider originally released on Capcom's CPS-1, the same arcade board that Street Fighter II launched on. It has been ported to many systems, including the Virtual Console, but for the sake of this Retrolog I will be looking at the Genesis version.

Enter Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden, one of the greatest side-scrolling action games of the 8-bit era and possibly ever. Ninja Gaiden is the first in a trilogy of games that first released on the Nintendo Entertainment System and is the one I'll be taking a look at for this Retrolog.

Arguably Konami's most classic title, Gradius is one of the first modern shoot 'em ups ever released and the first that used the famous “Konami Code.” Playing the Nintendo eShop port of Gradius on Wii U is both depressing and very fun. It is fun because Gradius is an amazing game that, as cliché as it sounds, stands the test of time, and depressing because Konami will unfortunately never reach such heights again.